Kercheval was born in Fontainebleau, France. Raised in Cocoa, Florida, she studied in Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida. She studied with Janet Burroway, David Kirby, and Jerome Stern there. She received her Bachelor of Arts in History at the university in 1983.

Kercheval earned her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, 1986. She then worked at the DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana, for a year.

She proceeded to the University of Wisconsin—Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, and was the founding director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing. She is currently the director of the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing and the Sally Mead Hands Bascom Professor of English. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin with her husband, Dan, their two children, and a rat terrier.

• The Dogeater (1987) (ISBN 0826206328)
• The Museum of Happiness (1993) (ISBN 057119821X)
• Building Fiction: How To Develop Plot and Structure (1997) (ISBN 1884910289)
• Space: A Memoir (1998) (ISBN 1565121465)
• World as Dictionary (1999) (ISBN 0887482856)
• Dog Angel (2004) (ISBN 0822958406)
• Chartreuse (2005) (ISBN 0975257390)
• Film History as Train Wreck (2006)
• The Alice Stories (2007) (ISBN 9780803211353 )
• Cinema Muto (2009) (ISBN 9780809328956)
• Brazil (2010) (ISBN 9781880834862)

Short Stories

Kercheval's first published book was a collection of short stories named The Dogeater. The stories include The Dogeater, Underground Women, Willy, A Clean House, Tertiary Care, La Mort au Moyen Age, The History of the Church in America, and A History of Indiana. It is now out of print.

The short story The Dogeater is about an Igorrote man who lived in New Orleans. He was brought to the United States of America for the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.

Underground Women discusses the poor way women were treated. It was expanded into Kercheval's later novel, The Museum of Happiness. Kercheval got the idea for Underground Women after seeing a woman collapse in a launderette during a trip to Paris.

Novels

The Museum of Happiness is about two characters, Roland Keppi and Ginny Gillespie. Gillespie resembled Professor Kercheval in a considerable extent, and she found difficulty constructing a character that resembled her. She was forced to alter the character in order to continue the novel.

The novel The Alice Stories is about a girl called Alice and her family. She fell in love with Anders Dahl, a Norwegian farmer. Then, their child Maude was born. The novel goes through her life and her biggest challenge.

Nonfiction

Space is Kercheval's memoir about her childhood and the Space Race. It was published by Algonquin Books, and is now out of print.

The writing textbook Building Fiction:How to Develop Plot and Structure was published in 1997, by Story Press, and reissued by the University of Wisconsin—Madison Press. Divided into two parts, it discusses sources for fiction, openings, points-of-view, characters and endings. It also discusses novels, novellas, novels-in-stories and short stories.

Poetry and Chapbooks

Kercheval has altogether published five chapbooks. The first collection was World as Dictionary, published by Carnegie Mellon University Press. The second, Dog Angel, was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. The third was Chartreuse, which was a chapbook of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. It was published by Hollyridge Press. Likewise, her next chapbook, Film History as a Train Wreck was also a chapbook of mixed genres. It was published by the Center for Book Arts. Finally, her topical collection of poetry, Cinema Muto, was about the age of silent films.

Others

Kercheval also composed a one-page short short story, Carpathia. Published in Chapter 11 of her textbook Building Fiction, this book is about the story of two passengers on board the Carpathia, narrated by their future daughter.

Her memoir, Space, won the Alex Award from the American Library Association. The Dogeater won the Associated Writing Programs Award 1986 in Short Fiction. The Alice Stories, won the Prairie Schooner Fiction Book Prize. Her novella, Brazil, was the winner of the Ruthanne Wiley Memorial Novella Contest. David Wojahn selected her poetry collection Cinema Muto for the Crab Orchard Open Selection Award. The Center for Book Arts Poetry Chapbook Prize 2006 was also won by her chapbook, Film History as a Train Wreck, by Albert Goldbarth.